World News

Sunday, July 22, 2012

The McCarthyite Conundrum

The McCarthyite Conundrum
Conservatives wake up to the US-al-Qaeda alliance
by Justin Raimondo, July 20, 2012

After all the twists and turns of our eternal "war on terrorism," the logic of perpetual war has finally caught up with its most ardent advocates. It seems some conservatives – the kind who can usually be counted on to march to the War Party's tune are riled up over Mitt Romney's support for arming Syria's rebel army. Here's Andrew McCarthy, National Review's number one "the-Muslims-are-coming-to-get-us" ideologue:

"Congratulations to Mitt Romney. In calling for 'opposition groups' to be armed and trained for their ongoing jihad against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, the GOP's presidential contender has managed to align himself with al-Qaeda emir Ayman al-Zawahiri and Muslim Brotherhood icon Yusuf al-Qaradawi."

Now I don't want to accuse anyone of stealing my ideas without giving me credit, but this sounds awfully similar to what I wrote in my Friday the 13th column, which was entitled: " Al-Qaeda's Alliance With Washington." In that piece, I recount the history of the WOT, from the neoconservative vision of a regional " transformation" brought on by the Iraq war to the Bush administration's turn toward the Sunnis as allies against the rising Shi'ite "menace" (i.e. Iran). Right-wing ideologues like McCarthy supported the invasion of Iraq and McCarthy is himself a leading advocate of setting up a veritable police state in order to deal with the alleged threat of Muslim subversion from within. Yet now the McCarthyites – to re-coin a phrase – find themselves in a conundrum, as the Obama administration plays the Sunni card to the hilt, and allies with the Muslim Brotherhood and its more radical offshoots in Libya and Syria in an effort to hijack the "Arab Spring." This has culminated in the latest project undertaken by the US and its Gulf allies: the creation of a "Free Syrian Army" in order to carry out regime change in Damascus.

How do the McCarthyites reconcile their historic support for the War on Terror with the alignment of US and Al-Qaeda on the same side in Syria? The answer is: they can't.

In Libya, we utilized the local Al-Qaeda affiliate, which supposedly had disavowed bin Laden, to get rid of Gadhafi, and the same scenario is being played out in Syria, albeit to the nth degree. The latest evidence of Al-Qaeda's key role among Syria's "opposition activists" is a suicide bomb attack on the central headquarters of Bashar al-Assad's national security apparatus, killing the defense minister, as well as an inlaw of the Syrian dictator and a number of other top officials.

Does anyone doubt this is the work of Al-Qaeda, and not mere "opposition activists," as our news media dubs them? No less than two groups have taken responsibility for the blast, which has supposedly wiped out the inner core of Assad's support: the Free Syrian Army and " Liwa al-Islam," or the Brigade of Islam, according to Al Jazeera.

The two versions of this story are designed for two different audiences: Al Jazeera's for the Muslim world, where news of a terrorist attack carried out by Sunni fanatics who immolated themselves in the process is likely to raise cheers, while the Free Syrian Army's claim is aimed at a Western audience, which might have trouble seeing the heroic elements of a suicide attack launched against the national security headquarters of a modern state.

The latter version requires deleting the suicide bomber element of the narrative, and this US News blog item does just that: according to the Twitterings of a BBC reporter, there was no massive explosion at the national security headquarters in Damascus, no sign of damage, and therefore there is "confusion" about what killed all those people. Perhaps it was the Hand of God. To add more obscuring smoke to an already murky incident: CBS reports the attack was carried out by the Defense Minister's bodyguard, citing Al Jazeera. The US News blog asserts (without providing any evidence) that the Sana news agency – which has been offline all day – has stopped referring to the blast as the work of a suicide bombers.

With Al Jazeera floating their "the-bodyguard-did-it" theory, and the Free Syrian Army openly claiming "credit" for the blast, the sanitization of one of the worst terrorist attacks since Al-Qaeda's 9/11 strike at the Pentagon proceeds apace. In the official narrative, the rebels are still heroes. However, some conservatives of the "McCarthyite" variety aren't buying it:

"Yes, Assad's minority Alawite Muslim regime is a key ally of Iran's revolutionary Shiite-supremacist government. That does not alter the stubborn fact that the anti-Assad 'opposition groups' are dominated by Sunni supremacists. Stubborn facts cannot be evaded by clever labeling 'opposition groups' in Syria having become the euphemism du jour that 'rebels' was in Libya, 'peaceful protesters' in Egypt, 'uprisings' in Tunisia, and so on. Nor can we confidently assert any longer that what is bad for Iran must be good for us. Threats are dynamic, and much has changed in the last decade. The Iranian regime is not the only virulently anti-American revolutionary movement realistically threatening to enslave the Middle East in its version of totalitarian sharia and implacable anti-Semitism."

McCarthy is smart enough to realize this turn toward the Sunnis was started under the Bush administration, but not honest enough to admit that this wasn't about "political correctness" and fear of "Islamophobia," but a strategic decision that has plenty of precedent in the annals of American foreign policy and covert operations abroad. We don't see the words " Anbar Awakening" in McCarthy's screed, nor do we see any recognition that this developing alliance with Islamists in the Middle East was the logical outcome of our longstanding campaign for regime change in Iran. Funny, but we didn't hear any criticisms from National Review or McCarthy of the Iraqi "surge," which came packaged with the "awakening" of Sunni Iraq tribesmen who were put on the US payroll and bribed to fight Al-Qaeda. Now these same bought-and-paid-for mercenaries are crossing the border into Syria, and fighting alongside the "Free Syrian Army" to overthrow Assad and install and Islamist regime.

Al-Qaeda provides the heavy artillery – the suicide bombers who wreak terror in the streets of Damascus and towns throughout Syria – while the "Syrian National Council" and the "activists" who populate the Twitterverse are the public relations wing of a movement that is neither democratic nor supported by Syrian Christians, Alawites, and other religious minorities who live in fear of an Islamist takeover.

There is plenty of precedent for the kind of strategic maneuvering at the heart of the Obama administration's support for Islamist groups: during the cold war, the CIA's Big Idea was to support "moderate" socialists and leftists in the hopes that the hardcore commies would be co-opted and effectively neutralized. The CIA's penetration of the "anti-Stalinist left" is, after all, a big part of the neoconservative narrative: in their journey from the far left to the far right, the neocons met up with the CIA at several points, the most famous being the Agency's links to Encounter magazine and the Congress for Cultural Freedom. The career of Jay Lovestone, former top Communist official and leader of the "Right Opposition" (Bukharinite) in America, is a testament to that strategy.

Given the premise that we were locked in a world-wide life-and-death struggle with the Evil Forces of International Communism, it made sense to cultivate ties with the anti-Soviet left just as, these days, when the Evil Forces aren't Reds but Jihadists, it makes sense to forge links with the "moderates." There's just one problem, however: in both case the original premise is plain wrong.

The communists imploded, not due to anything we did, but because their system couldn't produce the goods and couldn't retain the loyalties of its subjects. The Islamists, for their part, pose even less of a threat: the Soviets, after all, were armed with nuclear weapons, and commanded a worldwide movement with mass parties in several Western countries and throughout the world. Communism even claimed the loyalty of a number of American college professors, and other intellectuals, and for a while – during the "Red Decade" of the 1930s – the Communist Party in the United States played something of a role in American politics.

The Islamists can boast nothing of the firepower the Soviets commanded, and – in spite of alarmist nonsense about the coming imposition of sharia law in America – they enjoy close to zero ideological support in this country.

But of course this is common sense, something our latter-day "McCarthyites" suffer from a dearth of to an even greater extent than the original McCarthyites, who at least caught a few real reds in high places. Today's anti-Muslim McCarthyites are reduced to accusing Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's aide, of being a covert agent of the Muslim Brotherhood via family ties. John McCain rose to defend Ms. Abedin, the wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner – yes, that Weiner – a charge that seems outrageous on its face. But on second thought …

The family ties underscored by Abedin's critics seem to be all too real, and it would be wrong to completely discount them. If indeed Abedin's mother is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's female auxiliary, then that is a link worth pursuing. Surely Abedin's defenders aren't telling us family ties of that sort are totally without significance: no doubt Abedin's views are influenced by these ties, if they exist, and asking to what extent this is true is hardly unreasonable. Many factors drive policy-making at the highest levels, and personal ties undoubtedly play an important role. It's easy to laugh at Michele Bachmann, but she makes a valid point, which just goes to prove that old adage about a stopped clock …

The Damascus blast has been utilized by the regime-changers to aver that Assad has "lost control" of Syria and chaos is on the way – a perfect rationalization for invoking the "failed state" scenario and bringing in the "peacekeeping" troops. Watch for it….

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/07/19/the-mccarthyite-conundrum/

Obama marks Ramadan, looks forward to Islamic dinner at White House

President Bendover Assinair is the Asslifter-in-Chief. Oink, oink.

New post on Creeping Sharia

Obama marks Ramadan, looks forward to Islamic dinner at White House

by creeping

How many Muslim Brotherhood will be at the White House this year? via Obama marks Ramadan - POLITICO.com. In a statement, President Obama commemorated the Muslim holiday of Ramadan — calling it a time to "cherish family, friends, and neighbors, and to help those in need." It's the month of jihad and conquest according to [...]

Made Everywhere

The Goal Is Freedom
Made Everywhere
Fear not China or any other foreign producer.
Sheldon Richman
Posted July 20, 2012

This TGIF (now slightly modified) first appeared February 23, 2007. In light of the controversy over job outsourcing and Chinese-made Olympic clothing, it is especially relevant today.

The Commerce Department (whose idea was that?) routinely reports on the U.S. trade deficit, that is, the amount by which the dollar value of American imports exceeds the dollar value of American exports. China's trade surplus with the United States is of special concern to many people.

Ordinarily, I ignore this monthly nonstory because, as Adam Smith wisely said, "Nothing . . . can be more absurd than this whole doctrine of the balance of trade." And how many times must it be pointed out that the current-account deficit is a mirror image of the capital-account surplus?

But in thinking about trade deficits and the Smith quote, I've come away with a new appreciation of what the old Scotsman was saying. Concern about imports and exports really is ridiculous.

Exports and Imports

What is an export? What is an import? These words are defined in reference to political boundaries of only one kind: national boundaries. If there were no such boundaries, there would be no exports or imports. But political boundaries are just that. They are not economic boundaries. To the extent that they can, people go about their business as though those boundaries weren't there. People cross the Canadian-American and Mexican-American borders to transact business every day. If they give them a thought it is only because governments put up barriers patrolled my armed guards who make them wait in line. People learn early in life that they can gain immensely from trade, and with that understanding comes the insight that it doesn't much matter on which side of a Rand-McNally line your trading partner lives.

So the very concepts imports and exports are founded on an arbitrary construct that has little practical consequence for people's economic activities. Back in the 1980s, when neomercantilists feared Japan's economic success at selling us stuff (seems a little crazy now, no?), I used to ask what would happen to the trade deficit if Japan were made the 51st state. Obviously, the deficit would have disappeared because we don't reckon trade imbalances between states. Why not?

In reality, then, there are no imports and exports. From my point of view, there is only what I make and what everyone else makes. It's the same for everyone else. Few people would want to live just on what they themselves could make. Frédéric Bastiat pointed out that each of us daily uses products we couldn't make in isolation in a thousand years. Talk about poor, solitary, nasty, brutish, and short! What makes this phenomenon stranger still is that the same thing holds true for all men, Bastiat wrote. Every one of the members of society has consumed a million times more than he could have produced; yet no one has robbed anyone else.

This is just another way of saying that the case for free trade is conceded the moment someone eschews self-sufficiency. After that, we're just haggling over the size of the trade area. But if free trade (read: division of labor) is good, then the bigger the free-trade area the better. Globalization should be the worldwide removal of all barriers to the exchange of goods and services rather than trade managed through state capitalism and multinational bureaucracies. Unilateral, unconditional free trade is the smartest policy.

Made Where?

There's another way to illustrate the emptiness of the words imports and exports. This was delightfully done last fall in a lecture given by the late Sudha Shenoy, an economist of the Austrian school who was long associated with the University of Newcastle, Australia. Shenoy showed that in a global economy, specifying where goods are made can be tricky.

Take China, for example, which keeps today's neomercantilists up at night. Why? Because it has a big trade surplus with the United States. The Chinese do sell us a lot of clothing and other textile products. But what do we mean when we say something is Made in China. Perhaps not what we think we are saying.

Shenoy emphasizes that Chinese workers do the final assembly of many products, but final assembly is but the tip of the iceberg of production. When you look at the full manufacturing process, you find a system of worldwide cooperation. Most of the materials and machines the Chinese use in assembly were made somewhere else: sewing machines in Japan, Korea, and the United States; dyes in Germany; button-making machinery in the United States, Taiwan, and Hong Kong; zippers in Japan; spinning and weaving machinery in the United Kingdom; raw cotton in Uzbekistan, Egypt, and the United States (subsidized by the government); cotton gins in the United States; and steel in Japan and Korea.

Once assembled, the goods have to be moved to the docks for transport to the United States. The trucks that do the moving are made in Japan. The ships and containers are made in Korea, Japan, America, and Britain. The shipping services are Greek and Norwegian.

"When you read a label which says 'made in China,' it is not made in China," Shenoy says. "It is made by the world economy, by the globe as a whole. . . . It is impossible to make anything in one country. And that is why, as Mises pointed out, the market economy does not respect political frontiers. Its field is the world."

Undervalued Yuan?

Shenoy's point is reinforced by economist Tyler Cowen of George Mason University. The neomercantilists blame China's trade surplus on its policy of keeping the yuan undervalued against the dollar. But Cowen argues that if that policy were to stop, it might not make much difference. Since China has to import parts in order to manufacture its exports (it runs a trade deficit with East Asia), the stronger yuan would enable the Chinese to buy imported components and materials at lower cost. Thus the price of Chinese goods in the United States might not change much, and Americans would still eagerly buy them up.

Cowen also destroys the notion that China is draining the United States of money:

Most of the growth in Chinese exports to the United States has come from switching manufacturing and assembly from other, more expensive, Asian countries. In 1985, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea accounted for 52.3 percent of America's trade deficit. By 2005, this percentage had fallen to 40.9 percent, in part because of cost savings from buying Chinese.

From 1986 to 1988, Taiwan and South Korea accounted for 60 percent of American footwear imports; China was only 2 percent. By 2001, market positions had reversed; China produced about 60 percent of the total and Taiwan and South Korea about 2 percent.

In other words, Americans are substituting Chinese goods not for American-made goods but for higher-priced Asian goods.

There is no question that thanks to the expansion of world trade we have more stuff, a larger variety, and lower prices. This does not mean all is well in the developing nations. There's little laissez faire out there -- or here -- sorry to say. But the remedy is not to harm consumers by closing our market. A better strategy is to strip the ruling elites of their State privileges.

Shenoy disarmingly answers the neomercantilists' big question: "You say, how are we going to compete with all these other countries? The answer is, of course, you compete by producing goods that were not produced before."

And because the expanded division of labor, global trade, and competition lower prices, there's capital left over for the production of goods we couldn't afford yesterday.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/tgif/made-everywhere/

Washington Times: Arpaio Probe Could Dwarf Watergate

New post on therightplanet.com

Washington Times: Arpaio Probe Could Dwarf Watergate

by Sard

Kuhner: Arpaio probe could dwarf Watergate

by: Jeffrey T. Kuhner
Thursday, July 19, 2012

America may be facing a constitutional crisis. Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., has made a startling declaration: President Obama's birth certificate is fraudulent. If true — and I stress if — then this scandal dwarfs Watergate. In fact, it would be the greatest political scandal in U.S. history.

Recently, Sheriff Arpaio held a news conference. He said that his team of independent investigators — composed of former law enforcement officials and reporters — have for months meticulously examined the computer-generated birth certificate that Mr. Obama revealed to the public in April 2011. Their stunning conclusion: The document is a forgery. His chief investigator, Mike Zullo, says that the document is full of errors and omissions. In particular, Mr. Zullo claims that numeric sections are not filled out that otherwise would have been in birth certificates from Hawaii during that time. But other sections, such as those dealing with Mr. Obama's race and his father's work and field of study, are completed. Hence, Sheriff Arpaio's investigative posse definitively believes the birth certificate is not authentic, but was manufactured to provide Mr. Obama with a veneer of constitutional legitimacy.

Sheriff Arpaio's findings threaten to plunge America into an unprecedented crisis. For if — and again, I emphasize if — he is correct, then Mr. Obama has perpetrated the most elaborate hoax in U.S. history. A fraudulent birth certificate would mean that Mr. Obama is ineligible to serve as commander-in-chief. His presidency would therefore be legally and constitutionally illegitimate.

The consequences would shake the country to its very foundations. It would mean that he should be immediately removed from office — impeached. Moreover, every law and executive order passed under his administration — Obamacare, the economic stimulus, the Dodd-Frank financial reform, the government takeover of General Motors and Chrysler, the granting of amnesty to nearly one million illegal immigrants, the National Defense Reauthorization Act, the drone assassination list — would be null and void. The logic is inexorable: Should the president's legal authority be deemed invalid, then everything resulting from it is also baseless. The Obama presidency would be overturned. Mr. Obama himself would be facing criminal charges — and possible jail time — for committing fraud.

Sard | July 21, 2012 at 12:19 pm | Categories: American Culture, American Sovereignty, Conservatism, Crime, Cultural Marxism, First Amendment, History, House of Representatives, Immigration, Legal/Judicial, Main-Stream Media, Marxism, National Defense, National Security, Presidential Campaign, Progressive Movement, Senate, Social Engineering, Social Justice, Socialism, Tea Party, Totalitarianism, U.S. Constitution | URL: http://wp.me/p1SHGG-6qH

Comment

See all comments

Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions.

Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser:
http://www.therightplanet.com/2012/07/washington-times-arpaio-probe-could-dwarf-watergate/

Here Come the Gun Control Zombies!

With their IQs dangling around their ankles as usual.

New post on therightplanet.com

Here Come the Gun Control Zombies!

by Sard

Once again, America is rocked by another mass shooting--specifically, the recent massacre that occurred in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater which left 12 dead and 71 wounded. It's more than understandable--at least to me--that when such horrific events take place decent people ask themselves what can be done to stop such brutal and senseless bloodshed. Is there anything that can be done? Whatever actions we take to prevent such violence can we ever really be assured that it will not happen again? Absolutely not!

Unfortunately, senseless violence has been around as long as recorded human history--and beyond (see Cain and Able). Look, we can work harder at trying to encourage some morality and a sense of decency and respect toward others in our society--something sorely lacking now, in my opinion--but it will never prevent all violence. Evil and mental illness will always be with us. It is what it is.

Right on cue, the usual suspects have begun to advocate for more gun control following the Movie House Massacre. Folks like Jesse Jackson, Salman Rushdie and others see guns as being the problem, not the dark heart of the individual who employs the gun in the commission of a violent crime.

You know, people were killing folks en masse long before guns were invented. It has never ceased to amaze me how people find more and more diabolical ways to exterminate each other. The argument that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" seems to fall on deaf ears for those who push for the elimination and strict control of all guns.

For example, I can sit next to pile of guns all day long and nobody will get killed or hurt. It's not until I pick up a gun and kill somebody with it does the gun present a lethal threat. But is it the gun that presents the lethal threat or the one who wields it? I think that should be self-explanatory. But it is not to many. But, then again, many have hidden agendas. WINK!

My reaction to the massacre in Colorado is simple: give me the right to defend myself and others. BEHOLD! We, as Americans, have that right! It's called the Second Amendment. I have the right via the U.S. Constitution to defend myself. I will not give that right up! EVER! It's evil to even propose that I should have to--particularly following the atrocious atrocity that just occurred in Colorado.

Victims of the Movie House Massacre

There's a reason the Second Amendment follows the First! Our Founders were well aware that free speech and the ability to defend oneself from tyranny and violence is central to the preservation of America as founded. It is an unalienable right endowed by our Creator. Like Ben Franklin once wrote (emphasis mine):

"The very fame of our strength and readiness would be a means of discouraging our enemies; for tis a wise and true saying that one sword often keeps the other in the scabbard. The way to secure peace is to be prepared for war. Those who are on the guard and appear ready to receive their adversaries are in much less danger of attack than the secure, the supine, and the negligent."

--Benjamin Franklin

Consider the words of George Washington on the vital importance of the Second Amendment (emphasis mine):

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence. To ensure peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference--they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."

--George Washington

George Mason, drafter of the Virginia Bill of Rights, accused the British of having plotted "to disarm the people---that was the best and most effective way to enslave them ... by totally disusing and neglecting the militia."

Patrick Henry:

"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun....Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own self defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defence be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"

James Madison:

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate government ... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, ... the several kingdoms of Europe ... are afraid to trust the people with arms."

Samuel Adams:

"The Constitution shall never be construed ... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."

Thomas Jefferson:

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."

Alexander Hamilton:

"Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed and equipped."

Benjamin Franklin:

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Abraham Lincoln:

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it."

Sard | July 21, 2012 at 2:54 pm | Categories: American Culture, American Patriotism, American Sovereignty, Conservatism, Crime, First Amendment, Founders, History, House of Representatives, In Memoriam, Legal/Judicial, Main-Stream Media, Marxism, National Defense, National Security, Plantation Liberalism, Progressive Movement, Second Amendment, Senate, Social Engineering, Tea Party, Totalitarianism, U.S. Constitution | URL: http://wp.me/p1SHGG-6qS

Comment

See all comments

Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions.

Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser:
http://www.therightplanet.com/2012/07/here-come-the-gun-control-zombies/